


Bad Man

by afteriwake



Series: In So Few Words [76]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Developing Friendships, Gen, POV Jayne Cobb, Post-Serenity (2005), River Tam Reads Minds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne knows he is a very bad man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Man

He knew he was a low-down nasty piece of work sometimes. He's tried to turn in River and Simon, and then later he'd tried to take River off the crew's hands so that Alliance operative would leave them alone. Then something happened. He saw Miranda. Saw all those people dead, found out the Alliance killed them all so that none of them could become people like him and the crew.

Jayne didn't like that much.

He chose his life. He chose to pick up a gun and use it to shoot people or intimidate people. He chose to rob people and hurt people and make at least a little money being a bad guy. But he didn't think anyone in the verse had the right to take that decision away from him, not Mal or Zoe or the Alliance. Nobody.

What surprised him was who felt that way the most, other than Mal. She came up beside him one night and just looked at him. It got uncomfortable after a minute so he turned away from her. "Whatcha want?" he finally asked.

"Miranda," River said quietly. "It still haunts you."

He said nothing keeping his back to her. Since she'd kicked all that Reaver ass she'd been more...sane. Yeah, she could still read minds and yeah, she still gave him the creeps sometimes, but he looked at her as more like a human and less like a walking freak show now. "Guess it does."

"They didn't have the right."

"No, they didn't." He turned back around and mimicked her, leaning on the railing that looked into the hold. "No one's got that right."

She nodded slowly. "No one."

They stood there like that for a few minutes, and he found himself relaxing just a little. Mal and Inara kept finding reasons to spend time together, Simon and Kaylee spent _all_ their time together, and Zoe was so wrapped up in pain she preferred to be alone. That left him and River and the more he was forced to be around her rather than be alone, the more he slowly and begrudgingly started to not mind her so much.

Finally he moved. "Reckon it's time to get something to eat." He waited for her to acknowledge what he said and after a minute of no response, he shrugged and headed away.

He never saw River smile and say "I like that bad man" at his retreating back.


End file.
